You need to keep up with everything. About the decision point

Probably each of us wants to do as much as possible in this life.

To have time to study, to have time to communicate with friends, to have time to have a full and interesting rest, to successfully combine work and household duties, to effectively combine work and raising children.

In fact, it turns out that the next day is over, but it didn't work out to read an interesting book, instead of the gym, I had to run to the store for a children's textbook, the apartment was not cleaned, and at work there was another blockage of work. And with studies or raising the level of their knowledge, not everything is so rosy.

In order not to turn your life into a constant race for the "last car", not to feel remorse for another stupid day, you urgently need to learn how to rationally allocate your time.

You will learn how to keep up with everything at work and at home, with step-by-step practical tips and instructions, by reading this article.

Step one: you need to decide on your priorities

To understand what is most important to you now, to understand what you really want, and that you are now doing the necessary work and taking exactly those actions that will have a beneficial effect on your future - this is the most difficult and time-consuming step to success.

What needs to be done:

1. Take a sheet of paper and write on it everything that you, in your opinion, did not have time or do not have time to do during the day, or during the week, or during the month.
2. Write whatever comes to your mind.
3. It is imperative to write it down. By writing down all your unrealized actions on paper, you involuntarily structure them, already subconsciously defining priorities for yourself.
4. Have you written? Fine. Now put this piece of paper aside and take another.
5. On the second sheet, you need to write everything that you want to do tomorrow, next week, or in the next half - year - year. That is, your plans for the future. For example, it can be the following positions: keep the apartment clean, read 10 books, learn English, submit reports on time at work or manage to complete work duties, play sports for at least one hour a day, etc.
6. After you have described in detail the things that you did not manage to do and the things you would like to do, compare these two sheets.
7. As a rule, at the beginning of the list, any person intuitively reflects their priority actions, that is, the tasks, the timely completion of which worries them most of all.
8. Next, you need to make the next, third list, in which to reflect only 10 actions. Actions that you really need to take and that you really need. If you write more than 10 such positions, you will again waste your time, and again you will not keep up.

Depending on what you do, study or work, stay at home or freelance, have children, are on maternity leave, or are just about to get married, the list may be as follows:

1. Job and job responsibilities
2. Children caring for young children
3. Household chores (cleaning, cooking, laundry, etc.)
4. Communication with relatives, caring for elderly relatives
5. Chat with friends
6. Study, additional education, professional development
7. Studying of foreign language
8. Sports activities
9. Reading of books
10. Rest (sleep)

Make your list of priority tasks, in which there should be no more than 10 items. This is the list that will guide you over the next few months. On our site you can find a lot of useful tips on organizing your time, housekeeping, as well as many life hacks for saving the family budget and saving money.

At the same time, you need to understand that at any time, depending on changing external circumstances or your desires and needs, you may well adjust your list of priority tasks, and reallocate your time based on the specified list.

Identifying time wasters

Identifying the so-called "time wasters" is also an important step in the process of rational time management.

In order to identify time absorbers, you need to describe in detail, with an accuracy of 15 minutes, how your day goes. From the moment you wake up until the time you go to bed. For this, a sheet of paper is best suited - it is the notes, as I have already said, that allow the most structured and visual decomposition of your actions in time.

Try to jot down on paper everything you did each day for the past week. From Monday morning to the end of Sunday afternoon, accurate to 15 minutes.

All periods of time for which you could not remember what you were doing are your direct and obvious time sinks. A not very organized person can accumulate up to two to three hours a day of such not obvious absorbers.

Obvious time wasters will also appear on your list. Such as the empty expectation of an unsuccessful meeting, standing in a traffic jam, sitting around while your child is dancing. Another obvious time-consuming factor is idle chatter with a work colleague, which, not only was “nothing,” but also led to the need to stay late at work, because because of this you did not have time to do your main job.

Unfortunately, obvious and not obvious time wasters are found in our life at every step.

After you have recorded all your actions in time, you need to carefully analyze the resulting schedule. You need to allocate periods of time in it that you could use for things that are more useful to you.

Well, for example, chatting on the phone with a girlfriend for an hour is, of course, a pleasant thing. You still need to communicate. But, on the other hand, during this time, for example, you could iron the linen or cook dinner. And if you combined communication, with the help of telephone accessories, and ironing, you would have freed up a whole hour, which could be spent on another priority matter.

Our tips will help you speed up the cleaning process in the house: Life hacks for housewives: quick cleaning in the house.

The same is true for job responsibilities. Analyze what prevented you from completing your work on time? I do not think that your workload is too high, most likely, you are simply too often distracted by other actions, which prevented you from doing what you need to do.

We allocate our time and learn to concentrate on one action

You cannot do ten things at the same time. No matter how hard you try. This is simply not possible. But to distribute the main work and household duties in time is quite within the power of any person, regardless of his age.

And so, you have already formulated your priority affairs. The next step is to distribute them in time, possibly combining the necessary and pleasant actions.

For example. You really enjoy reading books and getting active. But time for quiet reading is sorely lacking. So why not replace reading books by listening to them, fortunately, there are a lot of Internet resources offering audio books. These resources provide everything from fiction to educational materials and workshops. Personally, it is very convenient for me to combine the way to work - physical activity that allows you to walk 10,000 steps or more and listen to books. An hour and a half a day of such activity allows you not only to maintain your weight, but also listen to 15 - 20 books a year! And this is an expansion of horizons, and filling of vocabulary, and an increase in the level of intelligence. That is, solid pluses!

Replacing fiction with educational materials in my specialty allows me to maintain my professional qualities and constantly improve my qualifications.

For students, this way of learning new material will also be an excellent help - give up listening to music in favor of listening to textbooks, and it will become much easier to prepare for exams.

My friend, a big lover of needlework, combines embroidery and knitting with listening to books. For two years, I not only listened to all the literature from the school curriculum, but also got carried away with historical stories and investigations. Now - a solid storehouse of historical facts. Manages to turn a simple walk through the forest into an entertaining and informative excursion for us.

The same goes for learning foreign languages. Knowing, for example, that in half a year you will go on vacation to Italy, with the help of an audio textbook with spoken Italian, listening to it for an hour every day or two or three times a week, you can learn a vocabulary sufficient for everyday communication.

The time you spend commuting to work and home. It is possible that by public transport, or even on foot, it will be much faster to get to work than through all the traffic jams. Of course, ideally, try talking to your employer and try to shift the opening hours a bit earlier or later. The shift in the beginning of the working day by 30 - 40 minutes in one direction or another may be enough to spend half the time on the road.

With regard to work

The time you spend on idle chatter with colleagues, or on lengthy and unproductive meetings, you could be wasting on mainstream work. Setting priorities in fulfilling your duties and performing first important and necessary work, and then the rest, will allow you to stay on time and go home on time.

And the ability to concentrate on the main processes, not getting infuriated by trifles and not particularly necessary actions, focusing on the result, and not on the process of doing the work itself, will make you just an irreplaceable worker.

With regard to household chores

Watching TV in the evening, it seems to me, can be replaced by reading books or doing a hobby. Or, which will certainly be much more useful, for communicating with children or walking in the fresh air.

Basically, sitting in front of the TV is clearly not the value you live for.

If you really want to watch a new film or an interesting program, combine this process with the same ironing, cooking, or hobby that does not require full dedication or concentration.

But it is certainly not worth combining watching TV with study or performing work duties - the result will be disastrous, and you will not be able to concentrate on your main work.

1. Do not try to combine incompatible affairs. Such as watching TV and learning new teaching material.
2. Combine things that can be combined. Such as listening to audio books and walking to work, audio learning a foreign language and knitting, talking to a friend on the phone and cooking or washing dishes, or ironing clothes. Walking with the child, and telling him an interesting or instructive story, or memorizing the multiplication table ...
3. Try to stop a waste of time that will not bring you moral satisfaction or benefit for your own development.
4. Try not to do things that do not benefit you.
5. Learn to focus your attention on one process or business that needs to be completed. This skill will allow you to do your job on time, and to allocate extra time for things that you really need and are interested in.

By and large, in order to keep up with everything at work and at home, you need to take only four steps: understand what is most important to you, try to exclude unnecessary time absorbers from your life, rationally allocate your time, and try to fill your free time as much as possible. important and necessary actions for you.

The secret of success is simple: do not waste time on trifles, and you will all be in time!

Time is life. It is irreversible and irreplaceable. Waste your time
is to waste your life. But how do you manage to do everything?

Referring to the book "The Art of Keeping Up" by Alan Lacane and taking control of our time with the help of tools and author's methodology, to master your life and make the best of it.

In the book:

• how to plan your time wisely;
• how to become productive;
• how to keep up with everything and not get tired;
• how to manage your life;
• a lot of examples, life stories;
• special attention to the topic "how to keep up with everything around the house."

As well as tools and practical ways to become a master of time, not a slave, and do whatever you want with your life.

If you are sharpening a snide worm called “I want to do a lot, but I don’t know how to do it,” then read on and you will find tips on how to learn how to do everything.

How to have time to do everything? Alan Lacaine and His 61 Time Saving Techniques

I suggest that you familiarize yourself with a selection of some useful tips from the book, and also at the end of the publication, have time to use the ready-made list How to Get It All 61 Time Saving Methods from Alan Lacaine, author of The Art of Getting Started.

Lack of time

There is no shortage of time. We have a lot of time to do whatever we really want to do.

Control begins with planning

Most people make plans stupidly, as they prepare them
only under the pressure of circumstances. You may feel that you are under pressure from work and have to plan your day.

Or you have accumulated a large number of vacation days and want to use them in the most enjoyable way. If you only plan in this way, then you risk losing when you especially need it.

The ability to plan is not a natural talent, but just a skill - the more you practice, the more you get.

About the alphabet of planning

1) make a list;

2) define priorities.

When there is no time for planning

No matter how busy you are, you should always take the time to plan.
The less free time you have, the more important it is to you
careful planning of time. Spend only ten on planning
minutes at the beginning or end of the day and these costs are more than offset for you.

How to act alone with yourself

People often do not know how to use the opportunities that open up to them,
when they are alone with themselves. Think about what opportunities do you have when your kids are at school or when your coworkers go on vacation?

By identifying these opportunities ahead of time, you can.

About the main secret

The secret to being able to do more and do better is to make a list called "What needs to be done?" every day, keep him constantly in front of your eyes and use him as a guide throughout the day.

About the 80/20 rule

Based on the 80/20 rule, on a to-do list of 10 - 2 to-do's gives you 80
percent of success. Find these two cases, include them in group "A" and
implement them.

Leave the other 8 unchecked because their value is
the results will be much less than the two most fruitful cases.

If you focus on the tasks that bring the most results, even if you ignore many tasks with
the least return, you will feel more confident.

Read also:

About the rule "just once, but really!"

One of my rules is: "Take each paper in your hands only one
times. "Try not to put aside incoming paper that requires
immediate response, until the response is ready.

It's much easier to come up with a suitable answer immediately after you've read the letter. Also, if you postpone your reply, you will waste time rereading the letter.

About the word "NO"

Learn to say the word "No!" Sometimes the best answer is your "no" at the beginning.

It's a short word, spoken politely, but it can save you a lot.
time. It's very important that other people don't waste your time. When you say no, don't seem unnecessarily unfair or
heartless, but the people around you should feel the firmness of your word.

About the main question

"How can you make the most of your time right now?"

Ask yourself this question when you are faced with a choice between two
affairs, when you are exhausted, when you need to make the transition to some
other business.

About difficult cases

If you feel that the task you are undertaking is difficult or impossible, chances are you will not try as hard to accomplish it compared to the task that you think is easier.

But keep in mind that this impression is born of your feelings, not facts. Since you don’t know for sure how difficult a particular task is, you’re better off assuming that it’s not difficult and that you can handle it easily.

If you think you will be successful, you will work with great perseverance to complete this case.

Read also:

A technique that helps to cope with things that you don't really like, but you still need to do:

About activity stimulant

Although the deadline for work is always unpleasant, it contributes to
self-mobilization. A promise to meet a deadline, rather than saying that you will finish "later," is a good stimulant to be active.

About diversity

Try to change your incentives to keep you engaged. It is not at all surprising if, after working on the same task in
for some time, you are tired, you started to show anxiety, and you are definitely tired of work.

The need for change is natural. Variety not only gives "flavor" to life, it is one of its
essential nutrients.

Decision point

If you feel that you are about to drop case "A" and start doing
something else, tell yourself convincingly that you are in Point of Acceptance
Solutions.

Remind yourself what an important point it is. Warn yourself to move extremely slowly and with extreme caution.

Use three ways to help yourself overcome your disgust
"A":
1) face troubles;
2) admit that procrastination is even more troublesome;
3) create enthusiasm that will help you suppress rejection
of this case.

By fear on your way

Take fear out of your way. Many times I have come across people who avoided doing things that they attached great importance to because they

Don't let your emotions get the best of you. If you suspect that you are avoiding making decisions / work because of some inner fear, then the moment you reach the Decision Point, ask yourself: "What am I afraid of?"

Make a list of your options and choose the fear that most drives you to quit your job. Then face the fear.

About procrastination

Don't wait too long before rushing into battle. Give yourself a little
reserve in time before the deadline.

Try to start a little earlier, even if the pressure has not reached its full strength. As you learn to relieve pressure to ensure a good working environment, you will build up your willpower.

You will gain a new sense of freedom and self-confidence, feel less tension, and know that you are in control of your time (and your life).

About moving forward

The habits of your life cannot be changed in a few days. For this
it takes time. For you to take control of your time and your life, there are no magic words: "Sesame, open up!"

However, you can make progress towards your daily and life goals, even if you have only fifteen minutes at your disposal.

And how can you now spend your time with the greatest
benefit?

Books with benefit:

Films with benefit:

Developing and useful YouTube channels:

How to Get It All - 61 Time Saving Methods from Alan Lacaine, author of The Art of Getting Started.

1. Get satisfaction from every minute of your life.
at your disposal.
2. Try to get satisfaction from everything you do.
3. Be an incorrigible optimist.
4. Try to go from victory to victory.
5. Don't waste time worrying about your failures.
6. Don't waste time feeling guilty about what you didn't do.
7. Constantly remind yourself: "You can always find enough time
to do the important things. ”If these are important things, you will always find time to do them.
8. Every day try to find a new way to
use it to gain time.
9. Get up early on weekdays (and go to bed early).
10. Dine loosely so as not to feel sleepy during
afternoon.
11. Do not get hung up on newspapers and magazines (with rare exceptions). To keep abreast of what is happening in the world, it is enough to look through the newspaper headlines, the same applies to news on the Internet.
12. Learn to skim through books in search of interesting thoughts,
13. Do not stare at TV for days.
14. Ideally, work should be located close to home, to walk, when lazy - to go there by car.
15. Analyze your habits in order to get rid of
obsolete, or to improve them.
16. End "expectations" once and for all. If you have to
wait, then consider such a situation as "donated time" in order to
to relax, plan or do something that you would
they did not do otherwise.
17. Set your watch three minutes ahead to start the day
earlier.
18. Carry a notebook and a pen with you to write down observations or thoughts,
arising in the head.
19. Review your life goals once a month.
20. Every day, look through the list of your life goals and determine
with what actions you can achieve their implementation.
21. Remind yourself of your life goals with the help of inscriptions,
which you do on separate sheets of paper, placed in prominent places so that you regularly pay attention to them.
22. Even when you do small tasks, do not forget about your
long-term goals.
23. The night before or in the morning, plan your activities for the whole
day and distribute cases according to their importance.
24. Make a list of specific cases to be done in
throughout the day, and distribute them in order of importance, and then try to get the most important things done as early as possible.
25. Schedule your activities for three months in advance
forward in such a way as to ensure an even distribution of the load and variety in classes for each month, as well as reserve "extra time" for the implementation of "burning" projects.
26. Give yourself a chance to rest and reward yourself when
you complete important things.
27. Do the most important things first.
28. Try to achieve success not so much hard as skillful
labor.
29. Try to do only "A" tasks and never do "B" tasks and
"V".
30. Believe in your ability to correctly distribute cases according to the degree of their
importance and try to adhere to this order, no matter what
worth it.
31. Asking yourself the question: "Will something terrible happen if I do not
will I do this deed? "If the answer is no, do not do this deed.
32. If it seems that you are starting to procrastinate, ask yourself the question: "Why
am I trying to avoid? "and, having received an answer, try to meet this problem
face to face.
33. Always use the 80/20 rule.
34. Start with the most fruitful part of the project.
35. Try to discard unproductive activities as much as possible
faster.
36. Give yourself enough time to
focus on doing things of high importance.
37. Develop the ability to focus your attention and your
efforts on one subject for significant periods of time. 38. Consecutively focus on only one subject.
39. Concentrate your efforts on subjects that will bring
the most significant long-term benefits.
40. Try to show special energy and perseverance when you feel
that you can win.
41. Train yourself to carry out your list of "What to do?"
skipping difficult cases.
42. Try to exercise a significant part of your mental
process on paper.
43. Try to do creative work alone in the morning and
use the afternoon for meetings and conferences.
44. Determine exact deadlines for completing cases for yourself and others.
45. Try to actively listen to the course of each discussion.
46. ​​Try not to waste other people's time.
47. Try to entrust the execution of affairs to other people, if these affairs
are within their purview and they are better able to handle them.
48. I seek help from specialists so that they can help in
solving problems requiring special knowledge and special qualifications.
49. Whenever possible, delegate small matters and focus on strategic tasks.
50. Produce as little paper as possible and throw away as much as possible
more unnecessary papers.
51. Try to take the same paper only once.
52. Try to immediately write a response to most letters.
53. Try to keep the top of the table free for
work and place most important papers in the center of the table.
54. All things should have their own specific places in order to spend a minimum of time looking for them.
55. Set aside three hours a month specifically to disassemble
various trifling matters.
56. On weekends, try not to think about work.
57. Allow yourself to relax and "do nothing".
58. Assume that some of your time will inevitably be
spent on things that are beyond your control, but you do not need to worry about it.
59. During work, try to keep chatter to a minimum.
60. Constantly come up with steps you can take now to
realizing their goals.
61. Constantly ask yourself the question: "How can you now spend time with
the greatest benefit? "

Do you know what has the greatest value in the modern world? Think money? In fact, it is information and time. The paradox is that modern man has a lot of adaptations that allow him to save time, and at the same time he constantly does not have enough time. How to keep up with everything - every person who does not know the methods of time planning asks himself such a question.

See for yourself. Today, we don't always need to waste time meeting with business partners. It is enough to call or connect via Skype. Increasingly, we shop online. In the kitchen, the most difficult work is done for us by smart appliances - a food processor or blender, a microwave oven, a multicooker, a dishwasher. And it also happens that we buy semi-finished products, or even ready-made dishes. And we are stubbornly short of time. There is no time to communicate with family, take care of yourself and personal hobbies. The availability of information also turns against us, as we simply drown in it.

How to plan your time correctly

It would seem that what could be easier - to allocate your own time? However, not everyone knows how to do this. If you, too, sometimes ask yourself the question of how to keep up with everything and not get tired, you also need to learn how to plan your time. The first thing to learn is the three basic principles of time.

• Time is limited. There are 24 hours in a day, and in a week there are 7 days, in a month there are no more than 31 days, and in a year there are only 12 months. And we cannot change anything.
• Time does not stand still. We cannot slow down or speed up its progress.
• Time moves in one direction, it is impossible to turn it back. This means that you cannot change or fix what is in the past.

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5 rules for those who want to be in time for everything

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1) Make a clear plan

No matter how trite it is, in order to keep up with everything and not get too tired, you need to plan your time at least a week in advance. Get yourself a beautiful organizer or diary. The purchase will immediately cheer you up, you will immediately want to write something into it. The main advantage of the organizer is that you immediately see which day is busy and which is more or less free. In addition, you will accustom yourself to discipline, and this is the main quality of a person who rationally spends his time.

It should be noted here that matters vary in importance. There are urgent and important things to do first. There are simply important, but not urgent matters. They need to be done after the important and urgent ones. There are urgent, but not important matters. These are the ones that you can donate at all or make them after more important things. And finally, there are things that are not urgent and not important. You can safely cross them off the list.

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2) do not accumulate small matters

One well-known rule of time management is called the "rule of two minutes" (five, ten - whatever). There are small things that, not being completed on time, accumulate and hang over you with a significant load, like the sword of Damocles. If you don't want to be buried under this heap of things, learn this rule: work that takes no more than 10 minutes is best done right away. Answering a letter, making a phone call that has been postponed for a long time, cleaning the desk, finally washing the dishes or cleaning the sink.

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3) don't let your time be stolen

How to do everything, when during the day you correspond with several people on Odnoklassniki or ICQ, watch funny videos and photos, follow the plot of some TV series and hang out on the phone with your friend for about an hour? All these things are stealing your time, and how much it is stolen from you depends on you. If you do not have time to do anything, you will have to reduce the time you spend every day on such activities. How to do it? Set a rule for yourself: go to social networks not several times a day, but once every 3-4 days. And do not hang out on the phone with a friend, it is better to meet with her on the weekend.

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4) try to maintain order

If you are regularly tormented by the question of how to do everything, try to maintain order in everything. Every thing in your home, on your desk, in your purse should have its own place. Everything that has served and will no longer need to be disposed of. If you allocate at least 10 minutes a day for this, in a month everything will be in order. Well, or in two, if you haven't supported him for too long. On the first day you will disassemble the contents of your purse, on the second you will put things in order in your cosmetics, on the third you will take to your desk or at least one of its drawers. Throw away the bucket of all kinds of rubbish and enjoy yourself.

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5) Introduce new habits

Not sure how to do everything in a day? Try to find yourself a new hobby. It can be any hobby: fitness or yoga, beading, embroidery, sewing, learning a foreign language. Remember how it was after the hospital: at first they did not have time to do anything, and then they learned to do even more things at the same time than they could before. What's the secret? Within tight limits. When we have no other choice, we don’t think about how to keep up with everything, but simply do and succeed. Decide how much time per week you can give yourself, and start right from tomorrow. Have you decided to run in the morning? Perfectly. Set aside excuses and postponements of this event. The main thing is not to abandon the decision made within six weeks. During this time, according to psychologists, you will form a stable habit, and you will subsequently not be able to give up your new hobby.

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The main principles of time planning

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How to keep up with everything at work

If you constantly have to interrupt work because you need to perform other equally important tasks, it is better to combine similar tasks into blocks. After all, breaks, as already mentioned, require additional "overclocking". Perform small in volume and similar in nature cases one after another: solving official issues by phone, discussing assignments with employees, sorting out correspondence. Then the time savings will be appreciated by you.

Perform large tasks in small parts, not forgetting to set intermediate goals for yourself personally. When the result of work is distant in time, people willy-nilly "dodge" tasks, putting them on the back burner. It was not for nothing that Albert Einstein noticed that many people like to chop wood just because the result comes immediately after the action. If the project is large, work on it little by little, but constantly.

What is needed to raise a child? First of all, a happy family represented by loving parents. But how to keep up everywhere, given that the routes of many of us are very similar - home-work-kindergarten or school-home? But you can still become that way. Parents just have to work hard. And the book by Ekaterina Burmistrova “Family Time Management. A book for parents who want to "do everything".

Foreword

This book was formed as a result of many years of counseling for parental couples. Sorting out the troubles of a particular family, you begin to understand that much of what at first seems to be purely psychological problems - frequent family frustrations, a child's nervousness or his slowness are actually the result of our chronic haste. There is not enough time for anything, and this is due to the fact that we are using it ineptly. This creates a lot of inconvenience and deprives adults and children of the opportunity to truly enjoy life.

I have put together fairly simple, but practice-tested exercises that will help you reevaluate your relationship over time. This is by no means a rigid guide to action and not an instruction, but only useful information that will help make our life more fulfilling, fulfilling and comfortable.

You can use the proposed exercises not in a complex way, but choose one or two and practice them for several days. For a start, you can even not change anything in life at all, but simply observe where the time goes, checking your own observations with the information gleaned from this book.

In no case should you be required to immediately acquire any truly new skills in dealing with time! After all, time management is precisely a skill that comes gradually. This process can be compared to training a particular muscle group. If for twenty, thirty, or forty years you have dealt with time in this way and not otherwise, you should not expect that you will immediately have new forms of interaction with it. Although anything can happen. And miracles happen: sometimes an instantaneous insight can radically change our whole life ...

This is by no means a rigid guide to action and not an instruction, but only useful information that will help make our life more fulfilling, fulfilling and comfortable.

Time as a resource

"Time management" is, speaking in Russian, the organization of personal time and its rational use.

The fact that time is an irreplaceable resource, which we often use thoughtlessly, turns out to be an unpleasant discovery for many.

Where does time disappear, what happens to it? The birth of the first child marks a radical restructuring of all life rhythms. With the birth of the second, time accelerates again, with the birth of the third, it accelerates even more rapidly ...

One of the reasons for the inability to use time rationally is the method of mass education and training, which was worked out for everyone, although it was not suitable for everyone. For example, both slow and energetic children were given the same time to write tests or prepare for an exam, while one did not have time, and the other coped with the task ahead of schedule.

Rigid adjustment to the uniform tempo for the collective, which was an indispensable component of the Soviet pedagogical system, had a negative impact on everyone. It is she who determines our subjective temporal reality.

Time seems to speed up as a person gets older. By the way, this happens to almost everyone after thirty or thirty-five years. Let's remember: in childhood, the days seemed huge to us and dragged on endlessly ...

I see time as a river flowing through us. Earlier it seemed to me that I was on the shore, and it was necessary to build some kind of reliable dam, to make every effort to keep this river, to make sure that the water did not leak away. However, with age, I got the feeling that a rapid flow rushes through me and that this is the immutable condition of existence, which means that one should not try to stop or slow down its flow.

The philosophical approach in this case is important, otherwise our life will turn into a routine. Plunging headlong into the parental vanity, day after day boiling in this mess, we forget our sense of time and lose part of ourselves. Often, nothing replaces this - neither the expected wisdom, nor a new perception of the world ...

The inner sense of age has a significant impact on our daily life. If we feel like seventeen, even though we are in our forties, and blame ourselves for this, the sense of time will inevitably be distorted. In addition, one should not discount the fact that Russian culture, contrary to numerous proverbs and sayings, is characterized by an obvious alarm about the inevitability of aging, as opposed to the eastern attitude: "the older, the better." Time is the "fourth dimension" of our being. We have to accept this truth with the least loss for ourselves, because any uncomfortable feelings associated with the perception of our own age interfere with living a full-blooded life and enjoying it.

Before you understand how to organize time, you need to understand what exactly is to be organized. Constant haste can be overcome not only with the help of specially developed techniques, but also simply by abandoning previous assessments and stereotypes.

One of the reasons for the inability to use time rationally is the method of mass education and training, which was worked out for everyone, although not everyone was suitable.

Calibration

Before talking about calibration, it is worth explaining why it is needed at all. We, the townspeople, are cut off from natural cycles and forced to live in constantly accelerating rhythms. Often we are unable to determine how much we can manage to do in a unit of time, and, most importantly, we do not see what we are not able to do in principle.

This is a separate topic altogether: allowing yourself to miss something, allow yourself not to do something. However, if there is no adjustment of intentions, a person is faced with the phenomenon of re-planning, and women's re-planning is most often associated with family matters (of course, if a woman does not work in production), and men's re-planning is most often associated with the performance of official duties. But if people connected by labor relations, albeit at the very least, are taught to allocate their time, then no one teaches young mothers, adolescents, and even more so children to do this. We do not have educational institutions where such subjects would be taught.

Let's give a typical example. The person counts on the fact that after work he will have time to stop by the station and finally get the luggage from the storage room, pick up the child from the garden on time, run into the store, and after dinner will add the quarterly report. When, closer to midnight, it suddenly turns out that of all the tasks listed in this unwritten list, which can be expanded indefinitely, it was possible to complete forty percent of the target (and this is good if forty!), The person begins to annoy himself for his sluggishness. Without making the proper conclusions, he recklessly decides: "Tomorrow I will exert all my strength to ensure that, apart from current affairs, I will complete what I have begun today!"

This process grows rapidly like a snowball rolling down a mountain until a person brings himself to neurosis and begins to suffer from headaches and insomnia.

However, our reaction largely depends on temperament. One will hopelessly give up on everything and make himself a disappointing diagnosis: “I am a loser. I won't be in time anyway, so it's not worth starting! " The other, on the contrary, will desperately grab any chance to carry out his plans, regardless of the possible consequences. He deprives himself of adequate nutrition and rest, saves on sleep, refuses to meet with friends and everything in order to further increase the pace of activity.

The most annoying thing is that such convulsive attempts are often unproductive. At the same time, fatigue accumulates, efficiency decreases and, as a result, the rates inevitably decrease. It is not surprising that then you have to pay with heart attacks, strokes and ulcers ...

One of the basic exercises that help break this vicious circle and have a beneficial effect, if not on the deep perception of time, then at least on the fight against the fluidity that sucks us all in every hour is called calibration. It makes sense to try this technique by practicing it for at least a week.

Start by writing down what you are going to do for the day ahead. To this mothers usually answer: "We have no time!" I strongly object to them: “You will spend no more than ten minutes, but then you will feel significant relief. Try it at least! Only, please, while writing down, take into account our everyday realities. For example, even after returning from a walk on time, for reasons independent of you, you may not have time to warm up your lunch by the appointed time. Try to detachedly assess how it all looks in reality. "

If people agree and follow this recommendation, they begin to realize that much of what has been planned is simply impossible to accomplish. It is our long-standing propensity for re-planning that tries to enslave us even more, and we, in turn, instill this vicious habit in our children.

We must convince ourselves that real life does not always correspond to our ideas about it, and the point is not in the inability to maintain a given rhythm, but in the inability to count and plan.

Think about what and how much time you usually spend, and therefore how much it should be required, for example, tomorrow's gathering of kids in kindergarten and school, how long do you plan to clean the apartment and cook lunch, what a shopping trip can result in etc. During the day, on the same page, in parentheses, put down the time you actually spent doing each of these tasks.

Very often, a preliminary assessment sins significantly against the truth, and errors are sometimes calculated not even in minutes, but in hours. In addition, it is interesting to understand what you forgot to add to your list, as well as what you spent time on unexpectedly for yourself due to the circumstances.

These are the so-called "intermediate" or "transitional" cases. We often do not reserve time intervals at all, mistakenly expecting that one case will smoothly flow into another, leaving no gap. At the same time, per unit of time, we often assume to carry out much more undertakings than is possible in practice. By practicing calibration, we can correct our mistakes by making the next day's estimate much more accurate.

In any case, life is full of surprises, and they should be recorded in a diary in a special color, laying in advance some time for an unfortunate coincidence of circumstances: either the soup will run away, or there will be no onion at hand, or the sports uniform will be lost, or a traffic jam will suddenly form there, where she never happened ... Already two weeks of application of this technique, as a rule, bears significant results, helping to more adequately assess their own time, strength and capabilities.

First, list in writing what you are going to do for the day ahead.

"Reactive Housewives"

The FlyLady system (loosely translated as "Flying" or "jet" mistresses), developed by the American M. Silly in 1999, is of practical interest as well. The main idea of ​​the system is a well-thought-out organization of housekeeping without postponing things "for later", which teaches you to regular cleaning of confined spaces. Let's list its basic principles.

1. The motto of "Jet Housewives": "Trash cannot be organized, you can only get rid of it!"

After removing the rubble, the house should be divided into "zones" and each week should be devoted to cleaning one of them, giving this lesson fifteen minutes a day.

It might look like this.

During the first week, all attention is focused on the hallway and dining room, then the kitchen becomes the object of care, the third week is devoted to the bathroom and the nursery, the fourth to the bedroom, and the last days of the month to the living room.

2. The future family menu should be planned a week in advance, and the kitchen sink should always sparkle!

3. At home, you should dress and look so that at any moment you would not be ashamed to go out or open the door for guests.

4. Make a list of everyday simple things that must be done, and check with it every night.

5. Work in each "zone" is given fifteen minutes daily on a timer (no more!). For example, if this week we work in the hallway and the dining room, it means that within fifteen minutes we put our shoes in order and return to their rightful places things that should be stored in other rooms. If we work in the kitchen, we disassemble the contents of cabinets and shelves, wash the stove and refrigerator.

6. On weekends, FlyLady categorically prohibits cleaning - these days should be entirely devoted to rest and communication with loved ones. By the end of the week, the "zone" will already shine with cleanliness, because more than an hour was spent on it, which is a lot!

7. General cleaning is carried out once a week, takes a little over an hour and comes down to six tasks (vacuuming furniture, wiping doors and mirrors, cleaning floors, throwing out newspapers and magazines read, changing linens, emptying trash cans). Everything else is done at other times when working in the "zones".

8. Trash - war! You only need to leave those things that you really use or that you really love. They should give you a kind smile, not annoyance or guilt.

9. Cleaning should be done on time, without waiting for the clean to become dirty.

10. In addition, every day for five minutes it is necessary to “save” the most disadvantaged room and “put out fires in hot spots”.

Trash cannot be organized, you can only get rid of it!

Internal chronometer and time perfectionism

A person has an internal chronometer, which usually starts up by the age of seven. Until this moment, children simply do not feel time, or rather, do not perceive its course. Starting from the age of seven, you need to strive to ensure that the chronometer "ticks", and the school system, with its lessons and changes, is called upon to help in this. However, it often happens that at school a child lives at a fixed time, and returning home, he is lost in it. Delaying homework is often connected with this: the chronometer must continue to count down the minutes and hours, but it turns out to be off.

In adolescence, the internal clock should work even more accurately, of course, provided that the person is responsible for his time. Until this happens, the child does not fix it. If parents plan everything for the student, each time taking him by the hand from point A to point B and at the same time calculating when exactly he should leave the house so as not to be late, then such accompaniment may remain the sphere of their responsibility for a long time. Therefore, calibration can be very useful for children as young as eight or nine years of age.

We assume that this internal chronometer works in adults, although it may be in a hurry or lag behind real time, sometimes misleading us. However, let us think: do we really have to manage to do as much as possible and as quickly as possible?

Many, without a shadow of a doubt, will answer this question in the affirmative, "after all, life is so short" ... However, this point of view should be recognized as irrational. Indeed, we do not have a desire to certainly eat everything that the restaurant menu offers, or buy all the goods laid out on the shelves of the hypermarket. But in relation to time, we behave as if we want to immediately swallow everything without a trace! We do not even have a thought about what we are physically capable of, how such a hasty "omnivorousness" will be useful for us and our loved ones, and how it will ultimately affect our health. A protective filter designed to cut off unnecessary, unjustified aspirations, unfortunately, does not always work.

As a rule, the desire to “have time to do everything” is most clearly manifested after the birth of the first child. When the second is born, you already understand that everything in any case will not be in time, and this makes you a little sad. At the same time, the desire to “embrace the immense” presupposes some kind of gain. What will be the prize?

The texts of various agreements are usually typed in large print, while the drafters emphasize seductive, albeit deceptive bonuses, making them catchy, but everything that concerns the numerous "pitfalls" accompanying almost any agreement turns out to be unreadable. This rule fully applies to family life: success often has to be paid for with chronic fatigue and depression, as a result of which a person who has shouldered an unbearable burden begins to irritate even the closest people who distract him from "important matters", hindering the implementation into the life of his plans.

A person has an internal chronometer, which usually starts up by the age of seven.

Prioritization

How to resist the negative scenario of the development of family relations? Draw a circle in your mind and divide it into segments. This is your time. What intervals do you divide it into? What are you spending on?

The lion's share of our time is consumed by work, the road to the place of service and back, cooking, cleaning the house (that is, everything related to everyday life), working with children and sleeping at night. I would like, of course, to devote more time to my personal life, full-fledged communication with my spouse, but only this does not always work out ...

Lack of time for marriage or its chronic lack of time is another topic for serious and even disturbing reflection. It is vital for a husband and wife to make time for each other. If you really want to preserve and strengthen your family, then you need to start with this. Guided by the residual principle, sooner or later you will destroy the family. Romantic dinners, going to the cinema together and out of town trips can all look different. The main thing is that this part of life should not be neglected, not relegated to the background by the daily whirlwind. Often, women expect men to show initiative, but at the same time push them away from themselves, giving priority to "much more important" matters.

Our relationship with family should be nurtured with care. In a sense, they are like a house: if you do not systematically put your hands on it, then the paint will peel off, and the wallpaper will become greasy, and the roof will flow ... In the words of the poet: “Live in the house, and the house will not collapse!” Likewise, relationships inevitably deteriorate if you do not tirelessly warm them with spiritual warmth.

This is not surprising: once close people realize themselves for years in different fields and as a result begin to understand each other worse. If in the everyday and office hustle and bustle you do not exchange impressions, thoughts and emotions for a long time, a psychological distance first arises and then expands between the spouses, which threatens to grow into an abyss. You and your husband are exhausted to provide your family with everything you need, and as a result, you come to the realization that it is time to get divorced, because there was absolutely nothing to talk about, because the sphere of common interests first narrowed, and then completely disappeared. Until recently, people who were loved and loved cease to be interested in each other and, in turn, feel indifference towards themselves. Dad begins to feel like a kind of wallet on legs, and mom is a high-performance food processor. The feeling of overwhelming happiness, fulfillment and contact disappeared, and all because people were saving on relationships!

By the way, it is useful for children to understand in time that their dad and mom are not only parents, but also spouses, that in addition to common parental and household responsibilities, they are also connected by some kind of relationship that is dear to them and for which they do not regret time and money, and most importantly, that they are really good and interesting with each other. So in the child's mind, the image of the family is latently laid and formed, to the realization of which in their own lives they will further strive.

Pronounced introverts need to devote at least a little time to themselves, otherwise harmonious communication between husband and wife will also be threatened. Let's remember: the personal time of each of the spouses is the guarantee of the well-being of their union! Many women mistakenly believe that husbands who go to work every day have enough free time, even if they spend on the road. However, this is an obvious misconception.

As a rule, there is no time for exactly what inspires and unites the whole family. Emasculating life can turn into a dull routine, into an endless "Groundhog Day" ...

The personal time of each of the spouses is a guarantee of the well-being of their union!

"Fields of Uncertainty" and "Time Eaters"

In the implementation of plans, we are now and then faced with the so-called "fields of uncertainty", which with the emergence of new family members are becoming more and more. For example, we cannot calculate in advance how long it will take for our children to finish playing and get dressed, or when the baby will wake up if we ourselves do not wake him up by a certain hour.

Those who strive to have time to do as much as possible, despite the prevailing circumstances, are worried and upset. They have a feeling of their own incompetence and, as a result, dissatisfaction with themselves. In this case, it is useful to make a list of four or five tasks ahead of time, which do not require significant time consumption, with which you can fill the unexpected pause. In other words, while your child laces up his shoes, you can do something useful, such as arrange ironed items on the shelves, peel potatoes and onions, which will be needed a little later for cooking dinner, water the flowers, or wash the mirror.

You can start "littering" the living space. Take a plastic bag and run through the rooms, dropping into it what you no longer need, and then throw it away without much thought. The selection principle is extremely simple: if you do not use a thing for a year, you can safely part with it! However, something should be selected in advance and, having sorted into boxes, taken to a temple or to a warehouse of some charitable organization.

Work that will obviously take longer to complete should be entrusted to growing children, and the sooner you begin to follow this rule, the more impressive success you will achieve. The fact is that a three- or four-year-old child hardly resists when, say, he is asked to lay out his laundry, in contrast to an eight-nine-year-old, who always has a wide variety of arguments at the ready: both the lessons are not yet completed, and the film must be watched to end…

It happens that, due to the significant loads that fall on the shoulders of schoolchildren, we completely free them from participation in any household chores. The pedagogical expediency of such an approach, to put it mildly, is not obvious. The child should be assigned at least a minimum of indispensable responsibilities. I advise everyone to be guided by the principle: "The right to take lessons should be earned!"

The possibility of delegating responsibility is often not considered at all by people prone to perfectionism. They are absolutely convinced that they must not only do everything quickly and efficiently, but also cope with everything exclusively on their own. In their opinion, if you instruct someone to do something, it will certainly turn out worse, because they will be late, do it wrong, put it in the wrong place ... "Time eaters", which already include:

1. a road that sometimes takes several hours a day;
2. telephone and internet. Constant stay "in touch" and in social networks pulls us out of the family space. Answering a call, we interrupt live communication with my husband and children, preferring him to a smartphone or computer;
3. putting things in order. The elimination of blockages is, of course, a vital process, but if it is not streamlined, as, for example, the FlyLady system proposes to do, not limited to rigid frames, it will turn into an insatiable "time eater", because order in the house where small children live , you can hover endlessly.

Pay special attention to the fact that your "time eaters", as a rule, are not visible, but from the outside they are striking. In the fight against this evil, spouses are called to help each other.

Occupations that we could well entrust to others, but still do not trust, inevitably pass into the category of "time eaters."

Planks and Priorities

It happens that it takes many years for spouses to come to an agreement on maintaining order and distributing responsibilities. Some are most outraged by the insufficiently cleaned floor, others by children's toys “forgotten” on the desk, and still others by the ever-disappearing socks. It should be noted that with the advent of children, we all have to lower the bar that characterizes the level of our expectations and requirements. Inevitably, you will have to give up old habits, for example, from the fact that the same dish cannot be eaten for two days in a row, and a family dinner will certainly involve the presence of snacks and desserts on the table.

Here we are faced with an adaptive process: at first, a lot seems to us unthinkable, but over time we come to the realization that some of the attitudes we have extracted from grandmother's chests: on Saturdays, the floors must be washed and scrubbed, the soup must always be today, and the linen must be starched to a crunch. But these are not our "standards": we either got them by inheritance, or learned from women's magazines and advertisements, or adopted from friends, and then learned and began to use "by default".

It should be remembered that borrowed attitudes are not kept in good shape, but in tension. Only their own values ​​are beneficial, and the ideas of the husband and wife should eventually come into line with each other. However, forcibly lowering the "bar", it is important not to lower yourself - only in this case, what is really important to you, your spouse and children, that is, your whole family, will arise and strengthen!

In addition, at other times, some activities can unexpectedly contribute to the harmonization of our state of mind, for example, by scrubbing the kitchen sink, we “let off steam”, calm down and come to our senses. In such cases, it is not the activity itself that is important, but the effect it produces, since we are talking about a kind of emotional stabilizers.

Borrowed attitudes are not kept in good shape, but in tension. Only their own values ​​are beneficial, and the ideas of the husband and wife should eventually come into line with each other.

An endless to-do list

Sometimes we are prevented from using such a stabilizer by a to-do list, which, although not written down on paper, is firmly fixed in the subconscious, distracting attention and taking away a lot of energy. I mean a truly endless list of unfinished, unfinished or poorly done things that we cannot get rid of. Indeed, how to tackle something that calms, if so many things have not been completed yet, if there are a huge number of items on the immense list? The features of the endless list are such that:

1. as a rule, only one member of the family thinks about him, and most often the mother;
2. the one who keeps the list in his head sincerely believes that the points on this list are obvious to everyone and do not cause doubts or objections to anyone;
3. it seems to the compiler that others are deliberately not joining his efforts, while he regards such non-participation as a sign of disrespect and dislike for himself;
4. the male list is fundamentally different from the female one and usually consists of only two or three items, the existence and essence of which the wife may not even guess.

An endless list of unfulfilled tasks is the enemy not only of its keeper, but of the whole family. The first step to defeating him is to fix him on paper. First, let your loved ones familiarize themselves with it. Most likely, they will be very surprised and even pity you, because it is really not easy to keep all this in their head. There are several options for working with such lists. We will recommend two of them.

It is useful for a husband and wife to study each other's lists. In many cases, this will help avoid misunderstandings and mutual claims.

Try to print your list, take a few markers and ask your spouse to highlight what he thinks are important in one color, insignificant in another, and those that can be postponed and postponed in another. If you manage to choose a suitable, non-conflict time for discussion, chances are good that such a dialogue will help strengthen your union.

A very common problem for Russian families is that women, consciously closing the entire household on themselves, themselves become dissatisfied with this. Gradually, this undermines and spoils the relationship between the spouses: it seems to the woman that her husband does not help her at all, and in response, she emphatically demonstrates his coldness to him. As a result, as a rule, disagreements, one way or another connected with children, are aggravated. The root cause of all this kind of frustration lies precisely in the endless list of unfulfilled cases. Many families with young children go through this estrangement.

Try to come up with general plans for a week or a month: even if later they turn out to be unfulfilled, it will still bring you closer.

Instead of constantly scrolling through an unstructured list in your head, it's helpful to keep hourly planners. The benefits of them are obvious and beyond doubt. For example:

in this case, you do not have to keep in mind numerous details, risking losing sight of the main thing;

you will feel the effect of “calibration” faster and more tangibly, since you will not just mechanically list the things you have to do, but mark in advance how much time you are going to spend on them and at what point you intend to start them.

• schedule of children's activities, days and hours of upcoming parenting meetings;
• household and personal affairs;
• family matters (certainly taking into account the wishes of the spouse!);
• cases that were once postponed "on the back burner", which have not yet reached their hands.
• In addition, as always, you should definitely reserve time for possible unforeseen and force majeure circumstances.

At first, keeping diaries may seem like an unjustified waste of time, but gradually this activity, which has turned into a persistent habit, will streamline your life, and things will stop piling up. Remember: an unjustified fear of planning is also one of the "time eaters". Fearing to spend time on systematization, as a result, we lose it much more, because the indispensable scrolling of an endless to-do list in our head by people dealing with household and children takes much more energy from them than writing down their intentions.

Until the to-do list is formulated, the person does not let go of the feeling that too many urgent matters have accumulated and he will never be able to cope with them. In this way, rational analysis is replaced by an emotional reaction. Writing, like speaking, is the primary processing of information, groping for approaches to solving problems.

If your partner does not show obvious interest in your “endless list” and, in turn, is in no hurry to share his concerns, then this is the position he has taken. The question is whether it suits you and how it affects your relationship. High interest is also a position, and it remains to be seen whether it brings you closer or repels you from each other, since it inevitably leads to a constant discussion of upcoming affairs, and this occupation, of course, is far from the most inspiring. First, you need to understand which of the two options is preferable for you, or at least less traumatic, and then, as much as you can, strive to reach the golden mean.

Instead of constantly scrolling through an unstructured list in your head, it's helpful to keep hourly planners.

"Order". What it is?

We all understand the word "order" in our own way. For some, it is determined primarily by the peace that reigns in the soul and harmonious relationships with loved ones; for others, such dependence is not obvious, but the rule remains immutable: every thing must be in the place allotted to it once and for all.

Usually people unite in pairs according to the principle of attracting opposites and the one for whom the external, formal order is especially important, as a rule, turns out to be the “suffering side”. Every now and then it seems to him that everyone around has conspired and deliberately plunges the house into a state of chaos in order to unbalance it. On the contrary, his partner is more concerned with putting things in order inside, considering this occupation much more meaningful and meaningful and not sparing time for it. Even in a perfectly arranged life, such a person is not averse to introducing an element of "artistic disorder", besides, he really does not understand why one should fanatically organize what will be scattered again anyway. People with a "disorderly" constitution do not see the objective sense of putting things in order. The difference in mental dispositions can provoke numerous conflicts and even completely destroy the family, if the spouses do not realize in time that it is at least unwise to quarrel over such things.

Each thing should be in the place assigned to it once and for all.

"Priority state" and "comfort zones"

Everyone can easily list the activities that provide their so-called "priority state". If we don’t devote enough time to them, we will inevitably feel frustrated that a meaningful goal is unattainable. It can manifest itself in oppressive tension, anxiety, and even in a sense of hopelessness. Often people think that by “closing” this or that position from the endless to-do list, they will immediately do the main thing, again mistakenly guided by the residual principle. However, the priority state is an extremely important thing! Each family member, including children, should remember that mom, for example, likes to drink green tea alone and from time to time twists a hoop, that dad hates being taken away from reading, and so on. This time, this comfort zone should remain inviolable for everyone, while if we do not leave them even for ourselves, it would never occur to us to protect and observe other people's "reserved territories". Indeed: since you cannot afford to flip through your favorite magazine when you so want it, or to chat with an old friend to your heart's content, why on earth would your spouse watch football at this time? If you and your husband "plow" from morning to night, spin like squirrels in a wheel, then the child has nothing to mess around! In other words, without setting aside time for your needs, without equipping your own comfort zone, you are unlikely to take into account the needs of others, unless you belong to the category of incorrigible altruists.

"Comfort zone" is a relative concept; its area can vary from a modest shelf above a common desk to an apartment as a whole. The main thing is that in this space a completely satisfying order reigned, nothing would irritate the eye and cause a feeling of homelessness. In order to achieve this, you need to start not with revising an endless list of unfulfilled tasks, but with what is truly important to you, your partner and your children, that is, organizing at least minimal comfort zones where you can take a break from a series of routine duties.

A woman at home is forced to work non-stop: every day to get up at seven in the morning to accompany her husband to work, and at ten in the evening to go to bed with the child. At the same time, as soon as she finally manages to cope with some business, another immediately emerges from the endless list. We inherited all this from our grandmothers and great-grandmothers, who had to do the housework from early morning until late at night. A modern person cannot withstand such a load, either physically or emotionally, and most importantly, he is guided by completely different attitudes. The quality of life of our contemporaries to a much lesser extent depends on the number of cases they have redone, but is determined by the creative process of comprehending what has been read, heard and seen.

Without setting aside time for your needs, without equipping your own comfort zone, you are unlikely to take into account the needs of others.

Parents are people too!

With the birth of children, children's expansion begins to develop: all living space is given to them, but for adults it practically does not remain. Natural, centuries-old hierarchical structures are grossly distorted, turned upside down. However, exaggerated caring for children at the expense of their own basic needs is fraught with potential danger. It is no coincidence that the instructions, which every air passenger can and should familiarize themselves with before the flight, emphasizes: in the event of an emergency, parents must first put on oxygen masks on themselves and only after that on children. There is nothing surprising in this prescription, and even more so cynical, because an adult who finds himself in a helpless state will simply not be able to help a child! In the same way, a twitchy mother and father, prone to hysteria, are unlikely to be able to bring up a worthy, respectful person for themselves and those around them.

A "comfort zone" is vital for every family member. Giving everything to children, delving deeper into our "endless list", leaving no place and time for ourselves, we do not think that we ourselves are worthy of much. As a result, the feeling of comfort never comes, which not only reduces the quality of our work and its productivity, but also spoils our character. There is no need to say that in the current situation someone can win.

You should not constantly postpone the realization of the dream of arranging a "comfort zone" on the back burner. Without reconsidering your approach to this problem, you will never solve it.

Exaggerated caring for children at the expense of their own basic needs is fraught with potential danger.

On the need for rest

If you still haven't learned how to take a break, try to identify what is preventing you from sitting still. We are talking about a short, ten to fifteen-minute rest, which can be considered complete, of course, if, of course, you allow yourself it regularly, and not once a week. You can adopt the rule of experienced truck drivers: two hours drive - fifteen minutes of rest. We strongly recommend that pregnant women take breaks from work every hour.

Experts believe that we can maintain maximum performance only for fifteen to twenty minutes. Of course, this rule primarily applies to children, but to a large extent it is also true of adults. Of course, we are all different. For example, among us there are probably people with a pronounced phlegmatic component, who "swing" for a long time. It usually takes them at least ten minutes to delve deeply into the process. To begin with, they must walk around, tune in and measure seven times. The pace of activity in such people, as a rule, is lower, and the intervals between active phases last longer. Choleric people, on the contrary, are involved in work almost instantly, but rather "burn out" ... Many are inclined to finish any work to the end by all means, or, at least, to do it until they become completely exhausted and fall off legs from fatigue. For example, we start a general cleaning and instead of breaking this process into parts, we bring ourselves to complete exhaustion, irritating ourselves and our neighbors ...

Try to do something that you particularly dislike for no more than fifteen minutes, then take a break. Adults need a timer just as much as children learning to navigate in time. Even if for some reason we neglected the signal, it at least sounded and was fixed by our consciousness!

Someone may argue: they say, it's easier for me to complete an unpleasant business and never return to it. The question, however, is at what cost this will be achieved. In addition, during the break, you may well do something else; it is not for nothing that it is said that the best rest is a change of activity. If you begin to be overcome by thoughts that are usually not characteristic of you about wasted time, about aimlessly flying life and about the fact that you are surrounded by some spinogs and parasites, then you have overworked and did not allow yourself a break in time.

A ten-minute rest can be considered complete, if, of course, you allow yourself it regularly, and not once a week.

Splitting classes into component parts

When we teach a child to clean a room, we first explain to him what we mean by the word "order", what result we want to achieve. Then we say: “Let's see how this order is formed and how it is achieved. For example, the floor. What happens if you wash it first? That's right, by the end of the cleaning it will get dirty again. Therefore, it is better to start cleaning from the table. And what should be done in order to remove the table? .. "

A child, as an inexperienced housewife, does not know how to break the process of work into stages, however, this remark fully applies to many adults.

For example, you finally decided to organize your home library, which for years has not been sorted out according to thematic principle. To begin with, you have to select and prepare a place sufficient in size and inaccessible to small children, where books will subsequently be sorted, then remove them from the shelves, clean the shelves of dust collected on them and catalog publications, putting aside the obviously unnecessary ones, and finally put the remaining books in the newly assigned places. Without breaking this whole operation into stages, you are unlikely to achieve success in a reasonable amount of time. First of all, you need to understand how long it will take for this work and whether your family is ready to donate it right now. In any case, the breakdown of any business into its component parts is the basis and guarantee of fruitful activity.

The same rule applies to such a favorite operation as washing windows. First you need to disassemble the cluttered approaches to them, as well as remove or occupy the children so that they do not try to interfere with the process or repeat it in your absence, then clear the windowsills, wash and wipe the outer and inner glasses ...

* * *

Among the daily routine for a large family, it is difficult to find time for unplanned, but, nevertheless, necessary actions. What to do in such cases?

Everything that we have to deal with in housework can be roughly divided into “routine”, to which we have to return every day or at least weekly, seasonal activities and actions caused by the occurrence of force majeure situations. When starting seasonal business, the “routine” should be firmly set aside, while each housewife should have her own algorithm for solving this problem. The question, however, is, do you command the “turnover” or does it always dictate its terms to you?

For a while, you can deliberately lower the bar of your usual requirements: a strand - but not in everything, lunch - but not necessarily consisting of three courses ... Long-term planning is also useful, allowing you to think over all the details ahead of time and divide the upcoming activity into separate operations. Do not forget that silence is not always golden! In most cases, we do not consider it necessary to involve household members in work at the preparatory stages, and then we annoy them and make claims.

The child does not know how to break the process of work into stages, however, this applies to many adults.

Subjective reality. The importance of deeds and the acquisition of allies

In such a situation, like-minded people are extremely important. The special significance of seasonal affairs (for example, preparing for a child's birthday, purchasing summer or winter clothes ...) should be conveyed to those close to you, because if the significance is not realized by them, you will not gain allies. However, do not forget that "significance" is a subjective concept. Some of the things that leave you without a shadow of doubt are not necessarily as obvious to those around you.

Recently, a friend of mine saw roller skates in a store, which were on sale at a significant discount, and called my husband to find out how he felt about buying three pairs at once, for all children. The husband replied that it was expensive, “now is not the time,” and advised me to limit myself to one pair for now. However, when a few days later he went for a walk with three children and one pair of skates, he immediately realized his mistake. Of course, the sale had already ended by that time ...

As a rule, women are much more involved in everyday life. For example, it is not difficult for you to predict how your children will behave in a given situation, but for a husband, their reaction may well come as a surprise. How to fix this state of affairs? Either by daily pushing him head-on with gross reality, or by patiently explaining why something seems so important to you, every time diligently avoiding the emergence of conflicts.

Remember: everyone has their own "comfort zone". While you’re looking at dirty windows and feeling upset, your spouse doesn’t pay the slightest attention to them. But he is worried about the fact that some kind of cloth for cleaning the dashboard has disappeared from the car, although its absence is not at all critical for you. The fact is that you have different ideas about the significance of things and events, but it does not at all follow from this that someone can be infringed upon in their preferences, and someone's interests are ignored. Otherwise, there is a risk that you, for example, will not be able to bring to the consciousness of your husband that the cleanliness of the window panes is essential for you, but he will easily demonstrate to you that such "conventions" do not bother him. As a result, the windows will remain dirty.

Until your spouse accidentally picks up an old iron, he does not realize how uncomfortable it is. Most likely, having received a negative experience, he will go to the store for a new one. In any case, communicating your subjective reality to your partner is a process, not a spontaneous one-time action.

Identify the main factors of discomfort that really annoy you and prevent you from enjoying life. As a rule, their number is limited. For example, we can talk about a stove that has not been cleaned for a long time, a cluttered table or old dishes accumulated on the mezzanine.

Tidy in the kitchen itself may not be as important to your partner as your good mood. He may sincerely not understand why he should wipe off something that will soon inevitably get dirty again, but, realizing that you need cleanliness, he will want to please you, of course, if your relationship is not spoiled.

Sometimes people who have formed a married couple are dominated by oppositely colored myths. As a result, one partner fetishizes order and even gets a kind of pleasure from the cleaning process itself, while the other, on the contrary, since childhood, identifies his refusal to participate in household chores with the struggle for his independence and civil rights. Someone from an early age is accustomed to ensuring that the kitchen sink shines clean, while the spouse often confuses it with a trash can. Usually, the mismatch of these attitudes and becomes the reason for divorce in the first months of marriage.

It sometimes takes years to understand and recognize the subjective reality in which a person close to you lives, but someone has to blaze this path, and then the other is likely to follow his example. If both you and he are ready to take into account this important factor, then your family is developing in the right direction.

Respect for each other saves energy significantly. It is a win-win investment in relationships and a sine qua non for gaining allies. You understand that it is impossible to clean the entire apartment at once, and you cannot redo everything. But from the mass of what has not been done, one can single out what is especially important for the spouse, for you or for growing children, and this is a completely different approach to the problem.

Identify the main factors of discomfort that really annoy you and prevent you from enjoying life.

Children's time management

Let's talk about how to introduce children to time management, how to ensure that they spend the minimum amount of time on doing things.

Your attempts to optimize your time cannot but affect those who are inextricably linked with you, that is, your children. Some believe that children, at least as long as they are still small, need only be taken care of, giving them all their love, and they, in turn, do not owe us anything. However, organizing them, accustoming them to elementary order, is a vital necessity. If the parents do everything for the child, his will is not formed.

The first stage of children's time management is the ability to complete tasks on a timer, for a certain period of time. As already mentioned, children under the age of seven do not feel time, or rather, they have their own sense of time. These are the features of children's perception.

The second stage is the acquisition of self-service skills, the development of a habit of performing routine actions that are not exciting and even boring, that do not fit into the reality of the game, in short, those that you do not want to do at all. I don’t want to, but still have to: for example, you need to get up and change clothes (although, of course, you can play all day in a nightgown), wash and brush your teeth (even if these activities do not bring the slightest pleasure), go out to breakfast when mom calls, collect toys (although it is not clear why to collect them), go to bed during the day (despite the fact that you do not want to sleep at all), and so on ...

We are talking about the rudiments of everyday independence, about the development of elementary volitional qualities, about primary time management. It is believed that if by the age of four the child has not learned to adhere to the regime, that is, to the sequence of performing the necessary tasks, later it will be much more difficult to develop this skill.

The third stage is a desire to help, to do something good not for oneself, but for loved ones, - a desire associated with the development of the moral qualities of a person.

However, the matter will not work by itself: if the baby is not taught to potty, he himself will not be accustomed to it, if the child does not grow up in a speech environment, he will not master speech and will turn into Mowgli. If the parents do not put in the proper effort in time, the child will never feel the time keenly. He will not want to serve himself, because it is not interesting, and it would never even enter his head to help someone. By the age of two or three, children are well aware that they are the objects of universal care, and not those who should take care of others.

Often, parents simply do not have the strength to defend their point of view. This is one of the reasons for nervous breakdowns. However, for some, such emotional outbursts are due to character traits (when any work is perceived as a punishment and everything falls out of hand), in others - by intra-family stereotypes (if a mother or grandmother had a hard time at one time), in others - dissatisfaction with a husband or wife, fourth - everyday circumstances (disagreements in the service, chronic lack of sleep).

Of course, the less negative emotions accompany the educational process, the better. Otherwise, not only the action to be mastered, but also the accompanying negative emotional coloring will be fixed in the child's memory. We can say that in the preschool period the learning process itself is even more important than its result.

In the old days, children were perceived as helpers and were assessed in accordance with what responsibilities could be assigned to them. The current child is a project in which you need to invest time and money in order for him to develop in an optimal way. The point of view, according to which the human personality is formed and developed under the influence of labor, and is brought up primarily in the family, has long been revised and, unfortunately, completely rejected. Modern education is focused on something completely different, therefore, before starting to educate a child's will, before teaching him to use his time wisely, you need to honestly answer yourself at least two questions: what results do you strive for and what about this the rest of the family thinks. If adults fail to reach agreement among themselves and develop a consolidated, albeit compromise position, all your good intentions will be doomed to failure.

Another important factor should be taken into account: earlier, both parents were involved in raising children, and then, for many reasons, fathers began to distance themselves more and more from this process. But one family member is not able to harmoniously shape the personality of the child. Moreover, such attempts may result in a protracted war of two characters, in which the rest of the household will be assigned secondary roles.

It is imperative for fathers to be involved in raising children, even if their time is limited by strenuous work. In any case, they will be able to teach the child many useful things, and sometimes make him do something in time. In addition, if the dad has specific responsibilities, for example, it is he who collects toys with the child before bedtime, or it is he who helps him to brush his teeth, or he and only he collects the child for a walk, the father is better imbued with the reality in which he constantly dwells spouse.

I believe that it is imperative to teach children to work. Only in this case he will be able to independently go out into the world, create a family and, in turn, raise his own children, without tangible losses. To do this, you need to be organized in everyday life, because everyday life is the basis for the formation of will. The kid must grow up as a person who knows how to take care of himself, earn his daily bread and with honor get out of the unfavorable and even dangerous situations that lie in wait for a modern person at almost every step.

All this can and should be taught to children at home, in the family, in no case entrusting these concerns to a nanny or professional teachers and psychologists. Of course, a lot is available to them, but the education of will is definitely not within their competence! They will not be able to teach the child how to handle time - this task is up to only a father and mother. And in every family this process will proceed differently, because many adults over time are also clearly out of tune ...

In the old days, children were perceived as helpers and were assessed in accordance with what responsibilities could be assigned to them.

Delegating responsibilities to children

Sometimes it is not easy for us to relinquish some of the household responsibilities once taken upon ourselves, entrusting them to someone, and even more so to children. To the greatest extent, such indecision is characteristic of women - their companions sin this much less often.

Most likely, your fears will not be unfounded, because, at least at first, any work will take much longer, and its result will be much more modest. However, this approach is also a kind of investment in the future. In order to understand why this is necessary, it is worth taking a closer look at some familiar family, where children are already accustomed to something, they can already do something, and be inspired by their achievements.

It is quite possible for children to be entrusted with the execution of many small household chores, primarily related to their self-care. Just don't get discouraged by failure: we all do little to achieve on the first try!

The child does not immediately begin to race around the yard on a bicycle: at first he falls down every now and then, returning home in tears and with broken knees. And he, too, confidently does not get up on skis right away, and he learns to read, write and count day after day. The very process of initial training may seem to him and to you dull, drawn out and does not bring an obvious, momentary result, but then, as if by wave of a magic wand: once - and he reads books himself, two - and rushes rapidly from a snowy hill, three - and rushes by bike to the bakery or to the post office! But if you do not teach the child to read and write, he himself will not learn it, if you do not teach him to swim in time, he may never master this skill.

The same holds true for household chores. No skills are inculcated by themselves, especially if the mother once and for all attributed any household chores to the sphere of exclusively her own activities. It would never occur to anyone that someone else would be able to wash the dishes or vacuum the upholstered furniture better than she, and if so, why bother to fence in the garden? However, this view of things should be consistently overcome with determination and perseverance. Trust me, everyone will win in the end.

It is quite possible for children to be entrusted with the execution of many small household chores, primarily related to their self-care.

What can a three-year-old child do?

Let's list the main responsibilities that may well be assigned to a three-year-old family member.

Collect scattered toys from the floor and put them back in place without prompting.

Put books and magazines on the shelf.

Take everyday dishes to the table. (You should strive to ensure that at the age of four the child could help you even in setting the festive table.)

Remove the crumbs left after eating. (However, some adults sincerely believe that littering is an inalienable right of a child, while cleaning up after him is a sacred duty of parents.)

Without persuasion, wash your hands with soap, wash your face, comb your hair and brush your teeth. (This point is alarming for many parents: "it will not clean well ...", "will get carried away with pasta tasting ..." and so on and so forth, and therefore, control over the process, in their opinion, is necessary.)

Undress yourself before bed and dress with some help. (Help is needed solely in order not to be late!)

Eliminate the consequences of "children's surprises". (The child will most likely whine: "I don't like ...", "smells bad ...", "I don't want to ...", however, parents should resolutely overcome their compassion.)

Feed the pets on schedule (have breakfast - pour some water on your pussy, have dinner - feed her too!)

Provide all possible assistance to elders in cleaning the suburban area.

Help with grocery shopping. This is not at all about the fact that the child is allowed to grab whatever his heart desires from the shelves of the supermarket. But at the request of his mother, he may well put a can of peas or a package of noodles in the basket. Subsequently, such joint trips to the store will help him to quickly cope with arithmetic, and over time, perhaps, will accustom him to the conduct of "home bookkeeping."

All of the above are the basics that a child must master. When this happens, your life will become much easier. However, if at least one item from the proposed list remains unfulfilled, the foundation on which you will build children's time management in the future will be shaky.

Your efforts should not be undertaken only from time to time: on the contrary, you need to painstakingly, step by step, ensure that the skills acquired by the child are reliably fixed, and all duties are performed by him in good faith and without prodding. The expected result will certainly be achieved, unless you doubt your goals and stop halfway. By the way, girls in this case are usually more pliable. Boys, most likely, will have to spend a little more energy, because their sphere of interests lies in a different plane. Here the father must come to the rescue, who will sooner find a way to interest his son.

* * *

Take a closer look at today's sixteen-year-olds. In many ways, they remain absolute children. Before us is the result of being led by the handle for an unreasonably long time. In fact, a whole generation of people has grown up with extremely low volitional qualities. Realizing this sad circumstance, you will better understand why it is so necessary to develop willpower in children. However, you will need really powerful parental motivation, since you have to row against the tide: now the main criterion is knowledge, and even superficial knowledge - more likely the child would have mastered "computer literacy" and "spoken English" ...

You should more often listen to your intuition, then you will be able to accurately determine whether today it is worth loading the child in full or it is better to give him a rest. But keep in mind that the thought: "she still has time to work out married!" can lead to the fact that future family life will turn into a real nightmare for your daughter. If you fail to teach her anything before marriage, she will most likely have to suffer in marriage. It is important not to look back at others, but to focus on your own understanding, whether it is about education, about sports or how to teach children to everyday life.

Your children's lives can turn out differently. It would be great to organize it so that everyday life ceases to be perceived by them as indefinite hard labor! This is where time management is designed to help. Just do not forget that the attitude with which you instill it in children will inevitably be passed on to them. It is not only the action itself that is important, but also the accompanying inspiring emotional message.

If you manage to intelligibly explain to the child why you are wasting your time on this or that business, and even forcing him to participate in it, then even the most monotonous activity will make sense for him. After all, garden beds in the country for a kid are a perfect abstraction. He must feel that the fulfillment of numerous household duties is not artificially created by you obstacles, obstacles and barriers on his bright path, but an urgent need for the whole family, a guarantee of its well-being.

In addition, the release of a child from housework always occurs at the expense of one or another sphere of the parents' life, at the expense of their personal and marital time. By tirelessly serving children, we deprive ourselves of something very important ...

Many parents are bitterly aware that the responsibilities of their growing children are still not structured. Well, as they say, better late than never! In this case, the situation should be corrected, starting precisely with the list of what a three-year-old child should be able to do. Moreover, you can start at any age, even if your offspring is already eleven, because he will not be able to fulfill the duties of an eleven year old until he learns what he should have learned in early childhood.

You should more often listen to your intuition, then you will be able to accurately determine whether today it is worth loading the child in full or it is better to give him a rest.

List of responsibilities of a four year old

Help make and make your bed.

Wash everyday dishes.

Wipe the dust off furniture.

Make sandwiches.

Put dishes on plates at family meals. (He may not be able to cope with spaghetti yet, but he can be trusted with potatoes and salad.)

Help Mom prepare desserts, such as custarding cupcakes or pouring jam on ice cream. (Usually we do all this ourselves, fearing that the child will burn himself, cut himself, get dirty ...)

Get letters and newspapers from the mailbox.

Share toys with friends.

Leaving the house for a walk, inform the parents where he will be. (Of course, the last point is feasible only if the family lives outside the city, although this requirement is a powerful way of accustoming to responsibility for their actions. Unfortunately, in modern megacities it is impossible to practice it. How can it be replaced? time to leave the child at home alone, having previously agreed that before your return he will not turn on the TV, eat all the jam, crawl into the closet and go out on the balcony. Of course, the safety of the baby in any case must be ensured!)

Play without constant supervision from adults.

We are afraid to leave children without our constant care, involuntarily becoming “personal animators” for them and thereby depriving them of their independence. It is important to be able to trust the child to take care of himself for at least a quarter of an hour - this is also a considerable responsibility!

* * *

The upbringing of will in children is easier given to those who are less often tormented by internal questions and doubts. Anyone who does not doubt the fidelity of the chosen path does not need any props. However, many still share the mistaken idea that the child is not the one who owes, but the one to whom everyone owes. Children perfectly capture these moods and sooner or later declare: “You are parents, which means that are obliged to provide us with everything that our friends and classmates have! "

It is difficult to accustom adolescents to order, but small children are still so attached to their mothers that they do not doubt at all that they are right. They, of course, are mischievous, every now and then they say "no" and may well scatter clothes in the corners instead of putting them in a wardrobe (a child's way of cleaning, a kind of "know-how"), but at this age they, by at least, they are ready to listen to you and strive for contact with you. The first seven years of a child's life are a great time to negotiate with him.

However, as soon as a grandmother appears on the doorstep, the situation, as a rule, changes radically: she wants to do everything for her grandson. But raising children is not part of the grandmother's task, unless she constantly lives in your family. Grandma's destiny is to enjoy communication.

It is bad if the will of the child is formed only by the mother. In this case, the design will turn out to be imperfect, and the mother risks turning into a Cerberus imperceptibly for herself. Some areas of upbringing must be entrusted to the father, first of all those that are consonant with his interests. Dad may well not know how best to arrange ironed linen on the shelves or decorate a festive table, but he, like no one else, will be able to tell his son or daughter that the bike should be greased on time, and perfect order should reign on the desktop. The uniformity of positions or their absolute consistency are rarely achievable things, the main thing is that they do not contradict each other, in this case the child will most likely avoid many internal conflicts.

The first seven years of a child's life are a great time to negotiate with him.

And finally ...

In a small volume, we tried to accommodate as much information as possible, which seems useful to us, while realizing that it is easy to advise, but to follow the advice is much more difficult.

Be prepared for the fact that you may not succeed in everything and not at once. There is absolutely nothing surprising and even more terrible in this! If, for a start, it is possible to realize at least 15–20 percent of the target, the forces will already be well spent. You just have to take a closer look at yourself and determine what exactly is stopping you in the first place, and then take a fresh look at how your family builds its relationship over time.

You shouldn't expect quick, rapid changes. Reward yourself even for small steps in the right direction, noting in your diary: “Today I finally did it! ..” Record even insignificant, in your opinion, successes, because perfectionism is the worst enemy and destroyer of any good undertakings. "Give us everything at once, or nothing!" - the installation is unproductive.

If you find our recommendations useful, share them generously with your friends, without turning them into your own fortune. The help provided on time is invaluable! Only by supporting each other, we can make our life brighter, richer and kinder.